


New Light

by twistedplaces (wintergalaxy)



Category: Elite (TV)
Genre: Did I get the last names right? I hope so, Emotional Trauma, F/M, Lu more so, My First Work in This Fandom, One Shot, Post-Season/Series 01, Present Tense, Rare Pairings, They’re both jerks, Why Did I Write This?
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-29
Updated: 2018-10-29
Packaged: 2019-08-06 03:49:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16380818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintergalaxy/pseuds/twistedplaces
Summary: The first day back is difficult for Samuel. Lucrecia makes it worse, in more ways than one.





	New Light

**Author's Note:**

> So...I have problems. They interacted for ten seconds in the last episode of s1, yelling at each other, and my response is to write a ficlet for them. 
> 
> I was going to write something a little lighter, but I think considering the show’s events, there was no way to really do that. It’s light enough, anyway.
> 
> I love Samuel—never stopped disliking him halfway through like I saw some people do. Lu grew on me. I disliked Marina. However, this is from Samuel’s point-of-view. Even though I think Lu can be redeemed, Samuel’s going to be more conflicted over her than I am; Marina will still be mentioned in a sometimes-positive light.
> 
> Neither of them like each other very much here. But that’s in-character, when personalities and history are taken into account.

The first day back at school is hell. But Samuel forces himself through it. He does what he’s supposed to do. He takes notes, answers the questions when a teacher calls on him, and walks back and forth to his locker to grab the textbooks he needs. But the entire time, he’s disconnected from it. It’s like he’s standing at the end of a tunnel watching himself go through the motions. Nothing feels real anymore. 

Except the elephant in the room. That’s real in the worst way—the way that wakes him up in a cold sweat every night, the way that randomly ices his veins until he’s paralyzed, the way that keeps the same few thoughts cycling in his mind in an endless, inescapable loop.

_Marina was murdered, and Nano was arrested for it._

_Marina is dead._

_Nano is back in jail._

_Nano betrayed him. Marina betrayed him. But he has to put that aside now, no matter how angry he still is._

And today, only a few minutes into history class, there’s a new, worse thought that suddenly springs into his mind:

_The true murderer is probably in this room right now._

After this knocks all the air out of his lungs, Samuel abandons any pretense of doing his work. He can’t stop watching them all in transfixed horror. Because as he goes through them all one by one, he realizes with a shock that _he has no idea who it could be_. He barely knows any of them, even the other scholarship kids, so he has no idea what they’re truly like. The only thing he does know is that everyone had motive. 

Everyone in this room is a suspect that he might have to expose to save his brother. Anyone in this room could be the killer.

It’s too much. 

The plea to go to the bathroom has barely escaped his lips before he’s stumbling into the hall without waiting for an answer, shoulder dragging along the wall for some semblance of support.

After a moment, Samuel stumbles into the locker room. He goes straight for the row of sinks. Head bowed over the basin, he splashes water on his face forcefully several times.

He’s more alert now, but he doesn’t feel any better.

Samuel raises his head and faces his reflection. 

The image that looks back is one that is unrecognizable as the same Samuel: watery, bloodshot eyes, pallid skin, chapped lips, and unironed clothes. This Samuel’s expression is one so utterly broken that he can hardly stand to look at it. 

Yet he also cannot look away. Seeing himself—seeing what this school is already doing to him after only a few hours—it’s hypnotizing somehow.

“This is the girls’ locker room, _waiter_.”

Samuel jumps, prompting a mean, humorless laugh from the same voice. 

With a deep inhale and a steadying hand on the side of the sink, he collects himself, then turns around delicately.

He blanches at the sight of Lucrecia. She’s several feet away, standing near one of the benches. One hand wraps around her purse strap and the other is splayed on her hip. She’s overdressed as usual, today in a blindingly yellow dress and a diamond necklace that is probably worth more than Samuel’s entire house. Not a single thread is out of place. As always, she wears a smile that doesn’t reach her eyes.

Samuel fidgets and tries to fix his collar, hyper aware of how disgruntled he appears compared to her.

Noticing this, Lucrecia laughs again. Her eyes glitter darkly. “Don’t worry, no one thought you were well-dressed in the first place. You _are_ from the slums, after all. We don’t expect much from any of you.”

Samuel glares at her, but doesn’t say anything. He’s too tired to argue.

Lucrecia is the absolute last person he wants to deal with right now. All of her problems are vapid and a complete waste of his time. The only reason she does anything is for her own gain. People think Marina destroyed people’s lives, but Lucrecia is guilty of the same, like what she did to Martín. 

Not to mention the last time Samuel saw her they were in the restaurant trading insults, which would make any situation tense regardless.

She hates him, so she will undoubtedly use the story of seeing him here in any way she can.

He can’t let that happen. He has to stay under the radar to observe his classmates and find out who really killed Marina. Nano’s entire future hinges on that.

“Well?” Lucrecia says after a moment of growing silence, raising her eyebrows.

“What?” he says stupidly.

Lucrecia stomps over to the door and indicates the sign. “Women’s. Locker room,” she says, every syllable enunciated condescendingly. She points at the cartoon figure’s skirt to underscore this, and looks back at him.

When Samuel doesn’t move right away—he’s still stuck debating what to do to keep her from talking about him—Lucrecia rolls her eyes and surges forward. She grabs his wrist with a somehow unsurprisingly strong grip, dragging him out before he knows what’s happening. 

Lucrecia only releases him when they are back in the empty hallway. She makes a show of doing so with exaggerated disgust, as though Samuel has the plague. She pulls out on a tissue from her purse and gingerly wipes her hands off on it.

“Just because I’m poor doesn’t mean I’m dirty,” Samuel says suddenly, defensive.

Lucrecia glares at him. “I did that because your hand’s covered in snot. It’s nothing to do with your…” she scans him, curling her lip in distaste, “...unfortunate home situation.”

“My home situation is fine,” he snaps, though she and everyone else knows this is a lie.

“Mm,” she says disinterestedly. She’s now putting on lipstick, guided by her compact mirror.

After a moment, the mirror clips shut, and Lucrecia looks toward him with unnaturally friendly eyes and feigned concern. “Why were you crying?” Her voice is delicate but deliberate. He doesn’t miss what she’s trying to do: get as much gossip as she can.

 _What’s it to you?_ Samuel wants to say.

“Because I was,” he says instead, shrugging. It’s not like he can deny it; she saw him.

Lucrecia wrinkles her nose. “Fine, then, if that’s how you want it to be. I was just trying to be nice.”

“Doubt it,” he mutters. To him, “nice” and “Lucrecia Montesinos” will never be one and the same.

“Don’t worry, waiter,” Lucrecia says acridly. “I don’t care what you think of me. I don’t care what _any_ of you think of me anymore.”

She seems to be staring off into the distance. Samuel is taken aback when he thinks he sees tears glistening in her eyes.

It is only then that he considers she might have been going to the locker room to cry too.

He doesn’t know anything about her or how the murder affected her. She’s vicious and conniving, definitely, but realizing she was going to cry stops him dead in his tracks. It makes him remember he’s not the only one going through this, even if it’s affecting him the most.

Tentatively, awkwardly, gingerly, Samuel reaches out and pats her shoulder. She jerks back right away, glaring at him, and he lowers his hand, trying to ignore how much the rejection stings. He shouldn’t care—it’s his fault for invading her space—but he does.

Lucrecia’s muscles are rigid as possible for a second, and Samuel thinks she’s about to yell at him loud enough draw people out into the hall. But then she sighs and deflates. 

“Thanks,” she mumbles.

Samuel nods, then says, “Sorry. For the bathroom. I wasn’t looking.”

Neither of them says anything. The awkward silence stretches out again.

He eventually breaks it with, “I’ll—I’ll just head back to class then.”

“Me too.”

But when Samuel starts off down the hall, Lucrecia doesn’t turn away and walk in the other direction. Rather, he hears her heels trailing close behind him. 

“What?” she says in response to his glance back. “I have class with everyone else, I’m just late. Damn Muñoz was trying to keep me out.” She skips in front of him. “But I took care of that, of course. Now she has no choice.”

Wondering vaguely what sort of blackmailing that entailed, Samuel stops. He’s reminded, yet again, what kind of person she is. What she might do.

He decides to just outright say it.

“Don’t tell them,” he says, and cringes at how desperate it sounds.

Lucrecia also stops. They’re right outside the door to Martín’s old classroom. Martín, yet another person caught in her web. He made the same mistake as Samuel’s doing now, and what he did last June. Challenging her.

But what choice does he have?

To his surprise, she smiles a little, but for real this time. “I won’t. We…” she looks down. “We’ve all got traumas with this. I learned that when G—well, when it happened.”

Samuel hangs back and watches Lucrecia saunter into the room, crowing, “Guess who’s back?” All hint of tears has been erased from memory and the smile is still lighting up her face. 

A horrible warmth starts spreading over him.

It’s so ridiculous that Samuel almost bursts out laughing.

He certainly has a type, doesn’t he? Lucrecia’s nothing like Marina, but they are similar in a few ways: uninterested, selfish, and destined to hurt him. She was genuine for about three seconds with him, and now, only moments later, he’s gone so far as to start imagining “rescuing” her from herself, like he tried to do with Marina.

 _Stop_ , he tells himself. _Stop comparing everyone to her._

 _Besides_ , he remembers with a start as he takes a seat in his chair next to Nadia, _she could be the murderer too._

He hopes she’s not.


End file.
